________________
JAIN RELIGION AND MODERN SCIENCE
Stephen Hawking; one of the greatest physicists of our time wrote in the end of chapter, 'The Origin and Fate of the Universe', in his famous book , 'A Brief History of Time'-'So long the universe had a beginning we could suppose it had a Creator. But if the universe is completely self contained having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end; it would simply be. What place then for a Creator?' Einstein therefore said, "God is left with little to do. Nature is governed by its own laws."
It is what precisely Jainism predicted thousands of years ago. There was no creator, nature itself is automatic and autonomous to follow its own disciplined laws and principles. When most of the religions -Jewish, Christian, Islam, believed in creation by a Creator. St. Augustine accepted date of about 5000B.C. for creation of the universe. According to book of Genesis it could be not far from the last Ice Age i.e.10,000 B.C.. On the contrary conforming to the present scientific- version, Jainism held the universe was there since infinity "Anadi and Anant", no beginning and no end. There is no God,